"While we do not, for now, have to share Nietzsche’s hatred of liberal democracy, we can make use of his insights concerning the uneasy relationship between democracy and the desire for recognition. That is, to the extent that liberal democracy is successful at purging megalothymia from life and substituting for it rational consumption, we will become last men. But human beings will rebel at this thought. That is, they will rebel at the idea of being undifferentiated members of a universal and homogeneous state, each the same as the other no matter where on the globe one goes. They will want to be citizens rather than bourgeois, finding the life of masterless slavery—the life of rational consumption—in the end, boring. They will want to have ideals by which to live and die, even if the largest ideals have been substantively realized here on earth, and they will want to risk their lives even if the international state system has succeeded in abolishing the possibility of war. This is the “contradiction” that liberal democracy has not yet solved."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Bloggers from the United StatesCritics from the United StatesCultural criticsSocial criticsConservatives from the United States
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
p. 314
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Francis_Fukuyama
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Francis Fukuyama
84 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Francis Fukuyama →
Related Quotes
"[T]here are defects and gaps in a liberal society that are constantly being filled by other longings and... structure…"
"[O]n the more conservative side... Liberalism has been associated with... the right to own private property... one of…"
"The idea of universal human dignity ultimately comes out of Christianity... the view that all human beings are equal …"
"[F]or both the pragmatic... and... moral reasons... liberalism became the dominant doctrine of the 20th century, and …"
"[O]ne of the problems... both on the left and the right is that the... individual autonomy protected by liberalism te…"
"[T]hat liberal world that emerged after 1945 led to one of the most spectacularly successful periods in human history…"
"[A]fter World War II, liberal rights were not something that were only deserved by white Europeans. ...[T]here was a …"
"[L]iberalism is... a protection of human autonomy."
"In Kant's words, human beings are uncaused causes, and therefore have infinite value, and a liberal regime protects t…"
"[I]n the 1980s and 90s there was an extension of the autonomy of individual property owners in... a movement towards …"